How can I change the audio format of a voice?

Question

I'm messing around with SAPI on Windows, and I've noticed that the audio quality of voices is quite underwhelming. By comparing the audio quality of a simple test program and various qualities that eSpeak provides, I've concluded that the default quality is somewhere around 16kHz 16 Bit Mono .

Simple SAPI test program

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#include <Windows.h>
#include <sapi.h>


#define _CHECK_HR(hr, debug_str)   \
    if(FAILED(hr)) {    \
        std::cout << debug_str << ": " << std::hex << "0x" << hr << std::dec << std::endl;   \
        goto check_failure;   \
    }

#define CHECK_HR(expr, debug_str)  \
    _CHECK_HR(expr, debug_str);

#define SAFE_RELEASE(obj)   \
    if(obj != NULL) {   \
        obj->Release(); \
        obj = NULL; \
    }


int main()
{
    ISpVoice* voice = NULL;

    CHECK_HR(CoInitialize(NULL), "CoInitialize");

    CHECK_HR(CoCreateInstance(CLSID_SpVoice, NULL, CLSCTX_ALL, IID_ISpVoice, (LPVOID*)&voice), "voice = CoCreateInstance");
    CHECK_HR(voice->Speak(TEXT("This is a simple test."), 0, NULL), "voice->Speak");

    std::cout << "No errors!" << std::endl;

check_failure:
    SAFE_RELEASE(voice);
    CoUninitialize();
}

Naturally, I've tried consulting the SAPI documentation , but haven't found out how to change the format. ISpVoice doesn't have a method which sets the format, but it has a SetOuput method, which takes:

either a stream, audio device, or an object token for an output audio device

My next step was creating an IAudioClient , with the format provided by SpConvertStreamFormatEnum , and setting its IAudioRenderClient as the voice's output. The attempt failed because I couldn't initialize IAudioClient.

Trying to set an audio stream as a voice's output

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

#include <Windows.h>
#include <Mmdeviceapi.h>
#include <Audioclient.h>
#include <audiopolicy.h>
#include <sapi.h>
#include <sphelper.h>


#define _CHECK_HR(hr, debug_str)   \
    if(FAILED(hr)) {    \
        std::cout << debug_str << ": " << std::hex << "0x" << hr << std::dec << std::endl;   \
        goto check_failure;   \
    }

#define CHECK_HR(expr, debug_str)  \
    _CHECK_HR(expr, debug_str);

#define SAFE_RELEASE(obj)   \
    if(obj != NULL) {   \
        obj->Release(); \
        obj = NULL; \
    }

#define SAFE_FREE(obj)   \
    if(obj != NULL) {   \
        CoTaskMemFree(obj); \
        obj = NULL; \
    }


int main()
{
    ISpVoice* voice = NULL;
    IMMDeviceEnumerator* device_enumerator = NULL;
    IMMDevice* audio_device = NULL;
    WAVEFORMATEX *audio_format = NULL;
    GUID format_guid;
    IAudioClient* audio_client = NULL;
    IAudioRenderClient* audio_render_client = NULL;

    CHECK_HR(CoInitialize(NULL), "CoInitialize");

    CHECK_HR(CoCreateInstance(CLSID_SpVoice, NULL, CLSCTX_ALL, IID_ISpVoice, (LPVOID*)&voice), "CoCreateInstance");

    CHECK_HR(CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(MMDeviceEnumerator), NULL, CLSCTX_ALL, __uuidof(IMMDeviceEnumerator), reinterpret_cast<void**>(&device_enumerator)), "CoCreateInstance");
    CHECK_HR(device_enumerator->GetDefaultAudioEndpoint(eRender, eMultimedia, &audio_device), "device_enumerator->GetDefaultAudioEndpoint");

    CHECK_HR(audio_device->Activate(__uuidof(IAudioClient), CLSCTX_ALL, NULL, reinterpret_cast<void**>(&audio_client)), "audio_device->Activate");
    CHECK_HR(SpConvertStreamFormatEnum(SPSF_48kHz16BitStereo, &format_guid, &audio_format), "SpConvertStreamFormatEnum");
    CHECK_HR(audio_client->Initialize(AUDCLNT_SHAREMODE_SHARED, AUDCLNT_STREAMFLAGS_NOPERSIST | AUDCLNT_SESSIONFLAGS_DISPLAY_HIDE, 0, 0, audio_format, NULL), "audio_client->Initialize");
    CHECK_HR(audio_client->Start(), "audio_client->Start");
    CHECK_HR(audio_client->GetService(__uuidof(IAudioRenderClient), reinterpret_cast<void**>(&audio_render_client)), "audio_client->GetService");

    CHECK_HR(voice->SetOutput(audio_render_client, FALSE), "voice->SetOutput");
    CHECK_HR(voice->Speak(TEXT("This is a test."), 0, NULL), "voice->Speak");

    std::cout << "No errors!" << std::endl;

check_failure:
    SAFE_RELEASE(device_enumerator);
    SAFE_RELEASE(audio_device);
    SAFE_FREE(audio_format);
    SAFE_RELEASE(audio_client);
    SAFE_RELEASE(audio_render_client);
    CoUninitialize();
}

Besides that, I've poked around SAPI Audio Interfaces , finding a bunch of other interfaces and implementations, none of which seem particularly useful for this task. I feel like I'm running in circles here.

The question: How can I change the audio format of a voice as eSpeak's TTSApp does?

Answer 1

Try:

ATL::CComPtr<ISpVoice> voice;
voice.CoCreateInstance(CLSID_SpVoice);

CSpStreamFormat format;
format.AssignFormat(SPSF_44kHz16BitMono);

ATL::CComPtr<ISpAudio> audio;
SpCreateDefaultObjectFromCategoryId(SPCAT_AUDIOOUT, &audio);
audio->SetFormat(format.FormatId(), format.WaveFormatExPtr());

voice->SetOutput(audio, FALSE);

NOTE: This does not include any error handling, so your code will need to check HRESULT return codes and object/pointer validity.

Also note that eSpeak's native output format is 16-bit 22050Hz mono.

For a C version, you will need to handle the COM object lifetime yourself, and look at what CSpStreamFormat is doing in the AssignFormat , FormatId and WaveFormatExPtr methods.